Cousins Divided: George V And Nicholas II

by Ann Morrow

'Cousins Divided' looks at the parallel lives of the last Tsar Nicholas II and King George V. This work traces the lives of the cousins through a glittering world of palace and patronage to the trials of war and death.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published March 23, 2006

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

FINALLY finished this book. I did not think it would take me this long. Let's just say it was very slow reading.

The first half of the book was absolutely excruciating. There was little detail in there that I hadn't read before in any book on the Romanovs, or in any general biography on British monarchs. It was extraordinarily slow reading and I kept putting it down and not picking it back up because it was boring as hell.

On the other hand, the details about the fate of the extended Romanov family as well as the last of George V's life was fascinating. I raced through that section in less than an hour. I had hardly read anything in there before -- of George V's feelings on not having saved his cousins and their children, on Nicholas's and Alix's extended families' bitterness towards George V, of the full details of the 1999 burial in St. Petersburg. That was wonderful.

Overall: 5/10, since I liked half of the book and hated the other half.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Staggeringly bad and mediocre - I could list so many idiotic mistakes but the book isn't worth wasting time on - seriously for two very boring and mediocre monarchs they have attracted a ridiculous amount of attention - at least Nicholas II has the merit to be considered as an astoundingly bad monarch whose idiotic failures doomed both him and his family, but most awfully his country to pain and suffering on an unimaginable scale. As for George V - why bother? he was so boring and limited that only his murder by his doctor makes him interesting.

Bad book about boring people.

[Pauly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many errors.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Appalling, amateur, mistakes. So many by page 50 that I had to put this down. Morrow is proved to be a most sloppy author desperately in need of an editor that knows literally anything about the period. E.g.: refer to “Leopold of Hesse” and then the same person two paragraphs later (correctly) as “Louis of Hesse”; the “reference to “Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Cambridge” instead of “Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge” complete with footnote for more detail; the reference to the “new Prince of Wales” on the death of Albert Victor and the advancement of Prince George (who would not become Prince of wales until his grandmother died 8 years later….. I could go on, but this kind of slop isn’t serious enough to take seriously.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read for anyone who is interested in the English and Russian Royal families. One is left wondering how history could have taken a very different turn if King George V had of allowed Nicholas II and his family safe passage to England.